Madagascar: Interview with local fishermen on the negative impacts of QMM's activities reveals water contamination, deforestation and loss of livelihood
"The negative impacts of the weir set up by the mining company QMM in Tolagnaro (Fort-Dauphin) in 2009 on the lives of local residents (Interview, 2018)", 23 August, 2021
<<At the time the company talked about putting this weir in place, neither of us agreed. We were very surprised when QMM decided to start talking about this weir. The population wondered who signed off on the construction of this weir.
The observation is that this project causes suffering. When there was no weir yet, the minimum we gain was 60,000 Ariary. We were really great. Currently, we barely earn 5,000 Ar when we go fishing, when life becomes more expensive and our income is not enough. We are suffering, we are really suffering, because QMM does not care about us. From now on, we will act, we will consult with QMM because they who installed this weir...
Since QMM put in place the weir, we have been suffering, we have entered into a crisis and it continues to this day. What we are asking for is that QMM take a close look at our demands, because the people are really suffering here in Manakana, Andrakaraka and Lanirano, and around the weir...
The children here are still sick. There is no doctor here, you have to go to Fort-Dauphin... My child passed out over there south of Manakana and was taken to Fort-Dauphin. We wanted to take him by taxi, but there was no cab. It is this water that makes him sick. This child would be 20 years old in this year 2018. Until the age of 10, he was never sick. Since the weir was installed, children become sick and do not heal despite care...
Since 2009, QMM has implemented development actions. Here, an eel farm. I myself was one of the advisers for this eel farming project at the time... We did not receive any money for this work. About 40 eels were put in the pond. Five days later, all the eels were dead. I don't have any technical knowledge, but to my knowledge, eels are kept in streams, but not in a pond. And so as soon as we put them in the cement-bottomed pond, they died.
The forest has shrunk a lot. The reasons are not related to our activities, but to QMM. The forest resources that we used, we are no longer allowed to use...
[T]he inhabitants of Andrakaraka, ... are not poor people, but people who have been impoverished. The life of the people in Andrakaraka had its dignity when this QMM company arrived... The forest we used to live on, in addition to fishery resources, has completely disappeared...>>